350,000 ONE members pressured the G8 and they acted

ONE’s G8 petition, signed by over 350,000 people is handed to European Commission President Barroso, French President Hollande and UK Prime Minister Cameron ahead of the summit. Photos: twitter.com/barrosoEU/Presidence de la Republique/ONE

I’m just on my way back from the G8 summit in Northern Ireland, and I wanted to write about the difference ONE members have made.

What an amazing two weeks – 350,406 ONE members called on world leaders to back Africa’s food revolution and unleash a transparency revolution, and they acted!

Thanks to ONE members, we are a few steps further down the road towards ending extreme poverty. 20 million children will now be helped to avoid chronic malnutrition, and real steps forward have been taken on opening up secret data, alongside increased natural resource, aid and tax transparency.

To everyone who signed our petition, contacted your representative, or spread the word about agit8 and the power of protest – this success is yours.

As ever, there’s a lot more to do to achieve our vision of a world without extreme poverty by 2030 – leaders didn’t go as far as we’d like, for example, in cracking down on phantom firms that rob Africa of its resources. Get our detailed verdict on the G8 outcomes.

But for today, I just wanted to say thank you.

ONE members from around the world with their favourite protest song lyrics.

Here are just some of the brilliant things ONE has been doing around the world ahead of leaders meeting in Northern Ireland:

In London, I presented your voices to Prime Minister David Cameron after Jessie J, Angelique Kidjo and many others performed live outside the Tate Modern as part of ONE’s agit8, calling on leaders to take action towards our goals,

In Washington DC, ONE members headed to the White House to hand in our petition,

In Paris, President Hollande personally received ONE’s petition, and European Commission President Barroso even took our record of protest songs all the way from Brussels to the summit!

Just before leaders met, we took several transparency champions from Africa and Asia in to Downing Street to tell the Prime Minister face-to-face about the human impact of corruption and secrecy

I couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve helped achieve so far, together as ONE.

We love to hear what you think. Tell us how you have been involved in events leading up to the G8, and what you think of the outcomes in the comments below.